The secrets behind a Cumberbatch bunch in 'Fifth Estate'

An exclusive clip from the bonus features of "The Fifth Estate" (out now on Blu-ray and DVD) takes a behind-the-scenes look at how filmmakers created a sequence with many Benedict Cumberbatches.
Touchstone Home Entertainment

Check out an exclusive clip on how filmmakers duplicated the actor playing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The filmmakers of The Fifth Estate didn't think so. In one of the biographical thriller's most visually striking sequences, Cumberbatch's white-haired WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen at a desk working, and is then multiplied many times over, with various Julians wearing different clothes and moving independently of one another.

The scene is supposed to be a metaphor for how much of the controversial Web company Assange really was, and an extra on the Fifth Estate Blu-ray and DVD (out today) shows how filmmakers pulled it off.

To have as many Cumberbatches as they could, the sequence was filmed in motion control, with multiple passes. Filmmakers then had to duplicate them to expand in all directions, and even tossed in a few digital Julians for added effect.

However, no matter where they sat the British actor, the camera would be doing the exact same thing. They'd film him in the hero position with a close-up, and then capture him at a different desk after a wardrobe change doing something else, and so on.

The bonus features of the Fifth Estate Blu-ray get into the nitty-gritty of other visual effects and use of graphics, and it also includes a look at the recording of Carter Burwell's original score.